Tag: Korean cuisine

As one of the last posted about my trip to South Korea, I thought it would be fun to make a master post (compilation) post of all the foods I ate in Seoul. Looking back I wish I tried out more authentic Korean cuisine. Because of the person that went along, I couldn’t eat most of the food I initially wanted to try. But, I still ate a lot of delicious food.

Korean café food
To start the day I would eat at a café. There are plenty to choose from, they even have Western brands like Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks. Most of the menus have English written under each food item, making it easier to order. There was only one instance where everything was only written in Korean. The price range may vary, depending which café you’ll visit. The foods they sell at Korean cafés are bread types, sweet desserts or even a combination of both. There’s often a great variety of drinks to choose from. Next time, I think I’ll be sticking to warm meals throughout the day. The problem is that Korean desserts and even the bread are way too sweet for my liking. I’m not really a fan of sugary food but it didn’t hurt stepping out of my comfort zone.

Korean Honey Bread Brick Toast, with whipped cream, peanut butter and bananas, is a well-known Korean dessert. I didn’t have a chance try it because I’ḿ allergic to some of the containing ingredients.

Ichigo Daifuku 大福餅 (strawberry rice cake) originates from Japan and I was a bit surprised to see that they also eat this in Korea. I had this dessert many times before. It contains mochi (rice cake), anko (sweet red bean paste) and one strawberry. This was good but I had better before. The mochi was a little bit too hard and the anko a bit too sweet. But overall, it was still delicious.

Injeolmi Toast is another well-known Korean dessert. It’s quite similar to the honey toast but much smaller in size. It’s a very sweet and sugary white grilled sandwich filled with a soft chewy rice cake, sprinkled with soybean powder, honey and almonds.

Line Cafe Brown & Friends Macarons are sweet treats you can buy at the Line Friends Café in Garuso-gil, Gangnam. You can buy them in a pack or single. They’re chocolate, lemon, vanilla flavoured and come in the shapes of the three Line Friends Brown, Cony and Sally.

Korean Snacks
If you want to buy snacks in Korea, you don’t have to look far. At every corner, you can find a convenience store. These stores are filled with all kind of necessities from day to day life but you can mostly find drinks and food items, cold and warm. Most of the shopkeepers don’t understand English, so, if you want to ask something it can be difficult. The prices are relatively cheap.

Korean rice ball (onigiri) filled with meat

Convenience store ready to eat Tteokbokki

Bubble Tree soft icecream

Korean convenience store soft chocolate icecream

Samanco Bungeoppang icecream, I have been seeing this icecream on a few sites, so, I had to try it. It’s a waffle in a shape of a fish, filled with regular vanilla icecream and sweet red bean paste.

Binggrea banana, melon & strawberry flavoured milk are also very famous throughout Korea. These are just flavoured milk, nothing less and nothing more. Strawberry is my favourite out of the three.

Korean Street Food
What’s really cool about Seoul is that you don’t really have to go to a restaurant for a satisfying meal. When it’s heading towards supper time, street food vendors emerge from wherever they came from. You have a lot of variety to choose from. You have different meats on a stick, chicken in cups, waffles covered in whipped cream, cups of fruit, vegetables and fresh healthy beverages. The prices are cheap and even some of the vendor owners can speak English very well. I really wanted to try out more street food but unfortunately, I didn’t really have the chance. Hopefully, I can come again to Seoul and try out more food.

Korean Sausage on a stick. These are pork sausages, they remind me of mini hotdogs. Some sausages are stuffed with rice cake inside them. Very spicy and delicious.

Tteokbokki is made out of soft rice cakes, fish cakes and gochujang (a fermeneted Korean condiment). This is a very popular and affordable snack throughout Korea. It has a very savory and spicy taste to it. You have different versions of this dish, such as curry, cheese and chicken Tteobokki.

Cup chicken also known as Korean popcorn chicken. I couldn’t get my bloody camera to focus on the chicken. But it’s just chicken in a cup with spicy sauce over it.

Dakkochi chicken skewers

Authentic Korean restaurant dishes
Ordering food in a Korean restaurant is not that difficult. Like cafés, most restaurants have menus in English and pictures. You can also examine the signs in front of the food places. Mostly if there’s English written on a restaurant sign, it’s a safe place for non-Korean speakers. Although, this isn’t always the case. I walked into a place where I have been turned down but no hard feelings. These are obstacles you have to face when you’re in a foreign country. Prices may very. Smaller hidden restaurants are a tad cheaper but overall the prices are fairly affordable.

Korean fried chicken is my kind of chicken. There have all kind of different flavors and ways to prepare it. You have plenty to choose from. I even saw fried chicken with whipped cream! I took a more simple approach and ordered the natural crispy with onions and garlic. I also ordered spicy fried chicken with potatoes (양념치킨). It was so so good! When I stayed in Seoul I ate about five times Korean fried chicken because it was just too delicious.

Bibimbap is another famous Korean dish. You have many variations but here’s the vegetarian option. It’s basically served with a bowl of warm rice, meat, vegetables, egg and Gochujang. You only have to mix those ingredients together and your dish is ready to eat.

All you can eat Korean BBQ Gogigui. You can eat relatively cheap in Hongdae and there are a lot of restaurants/cafés to choose from. Thinking about all the Bulgogi, Galbi and Samgyeopsal make me drool. What I love about Korean culinary are the many side dishes that goes along with the food (banchan). The Korean side dishes that are served the most are kimchi, guk, gochujang and jjiggae. There’s also a Korean way to eat grilled meat. Korean BBQ always comes with sangchu. You’re meant to wrap the grilled meat like a decorative present. The savory juicy taste of the Galbi goes well with the green leaves.

Korean BBQ Gogigui. This is different from the all you can eat places, where you have a set price and can eat as much as you can. At the regular Gogigui place, you have to pay for each separate serving. So you can choose pork, beef and chicken. The side dishes are included in the price.

Korean Take Out
If you don’t like eating out every day, then take-out is an option to be used. Almost every eating place in Korea has an option to order food and take it home. After a long day of sightseeing, this is really perfect.

I noticed that all American-like food are more expensive compared to Korean food. “Korean” pizza was no exception and relatively expensive compared to all the other food that I ate. If I remember correctly I ordered a bulgogi pizza, with cheese, green and red peppers. The pizza was of course very delicious. Korean pizza is very different compared to the regular pizza I’m used to. With flavors like caramel, whipped cream and chocolate, can you blame me?